“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” — Benjamin Franklin
— Harry Reid plans to address Hobby Lobby: Though Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says the Senate will tackle legislation to address the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case in the coming weeks. He didn’t offer specifics, but The Hill notes this morning that Democrats on Capitol Hill are planning to introduce legislation before that August recess to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and reverse the decision. “At least three pieces of legislation being prepared by Democrats would help maintain access to free birth control for women affected by the court’s ruling,” The Hill explains, “though staffers provided few details on Monday.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is reportedly “leading the push in the upper chamber.” Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) plans to introduce legislation to require employers to disclose whether prescription birth control is covered by in their plans. That legislation is odd given that Hobby Lobby, for example, objected to two forms of over-the-counter birth control. Two House Democrats are also working on legislation to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The measures being crafted by congressional Democrats have no chance of passage, but this is a wedge issue, so they’re going to play it up to motivate their base. Because politics and elections.
— Ted Cruz wants an investigation in Mississippi: During an appearance on Mark Levin’s radio show, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the allegations of voter fraud in the runoff between Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Chris McDaniel deserve an investigation. “[E]ven more troubling is in the past week or so we’ve seen serious allegations of voter fraud. And I very much hope that no Republican was involved in voter fraud,” Cruz told Levin. “But these allegations need to be vigorously investigated and anyone involved in criminal conduct should be prosecuted.” Cruz hasn’t said much about the Mississippi race, before or after its conclusion. But it’s worth pointing out that RedState editor Erick Erickson criticized Cruz for not getting behind McDaniel in the runoff. “Ted, it’s time for you to lead. #MakeDCListen was so 2013. It is time for you to go to Mississippi, get Chris McDaniel across the finish line, and #MakeDCFear,” Erickson wrote. “You’re either leading or you’re Cantoring your way into the White House.” For what it’s worth, McDaniel’s campaign plans to challenge the results of the runoff, claiming “several thousand” ballots were cast by ineligible voters. Also worth noting is that Cruz serves as Vice Chairman for Grassroots Outreach at the National Republican Senatorial Committee and indicated early on that he wouldn’t endorse in primaries in which Republican incumbents are challenged.
— Utah Republican convinced Romney is running in 2016: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) believes Mitt Romney is running for president, despite the 2012 nominee repeatedly saying that he’s not, and predicts that he’ll win. “A hundred times he says he’s not, but Mitt Romney has always accomplished what he’s set out to do,” Chaffetz said on MSNBC’s Hardball. “I think he’s proven right on a lot of stuff. I happen to be in the camp that thinks he’s actually going to run, and I think he will be the next president of the United States.” OMG. STAAAAAAHP. Romney was a terrible candidate. It doesn’t matter if he was “right on a lot of stuff.” He lost. Move on, people.
— Senators to rollout Ex-Im reauthorization measure: Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) will introduce legislation this week that would reauthorize the controversial Export-Import Bank and Big Business is hoping to flex its muscle by getting a big margin of victory in the upper chamber. “The last reauthorization of the bank charter, in 2012, passed in a 78-20 vote, despite the opposition of conservative groups that decried the agency as ‘crony capitalism’ that distorts the free market,” The Hill notes. “Opposition from the right is even more intense this time around, but business groups are hopeful Senate Republicans will vote in large numbers for the bill, at least matching the total seen in 2012.” The thinking is that passage of reauthorization by a large margin in the Senate would put pressure on the House to follow suit.
— Conservatives greet Boehner’s lawsuit with a yawn: In an op-ed at CNN over the weekend, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) defended his planned lawsuit against President Barack Obama. “What’s disappointing is the President’s flippant dismissal of the Constitution we are both sworn to defend. It is utterly beneath the dignity of the office. I know the President is frustrated. I’m frustrated. The American people are frustrated, too,” Boehner wrote. “In the end, the Constitution makes it clear that the President’s job is to faithfully execute the laws. And, in my view, the President has not faithfully executed the laws when it comes to a range of issues, including his health care law, energy regulations, foreign policy and education.” The lawsuit, which the House will likely authorize this month, has been met with a shrug by conservatives. Erick Erickson, for example, called it “taxpayer funded political theater” while Terry Eastland, writing at The Weekly Standard, says that “litigating the take-care clause is an idea that the speaker should reconsider.”
— Voters have already made up their minds about Obamacare: Little they hear between now and election day is going to move their opinions one way or another. “That might seem strange—after all, why step away from an issue that’s already proven so potent? But among Republican pollsters and strategists, it’s a very real debate. They worry that the years-long deluge of media coverage and negative ads have pushed Obamacare to something close to a saturation point among voters, who will simply tune out any additional TV ads or candidate speeches on the topic,” the National Journal notes. “Many Republican operatives still believe, despite the challenges, that Obamacare will be a prominent part of GOP campaigns come the fall. But candidates will have to calibrate their messages in new ways to reach a hardened audience. And perhaps more than anything else, they will need to offer voters plenty of other reasons to vote against the Democrats.” Healthcare still ranks pretty high on issue-surveys and Obamacare is viewed negatively by most voters, but the economy and jobs come in at the top. Still, though, Obamacare is going to be toxic for Democrats running in red states, where opposition is much more potent. And if premium increases come in on the high-end of projections, that could give Republicans more ammunition.
— Cell phone privacy ruling may be more important than Hobby Lobby: Doug Mataconis says that the ruling in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurlie may have been the most important decisions to come out of the Supreme Court’s most recent term. “Yes, Hobby Lobby is likely to resonate for many years to come, and the consequences of that decision are just not starting to become apparent,” Mataconis writes. “However, these cell phone cases will have implications for a wide-ranging area where the law bumps up against new technologies, and they will impact pretty much every person in the country in one way or another.” Those “implications” relate to the raging debate over the NSA’s bulk metadata collection program. Both decisions are important. It’s hard to say that one constitutional protection is more important or more significant than the other. But the Hobby Lobby case was divisive in American politics. After all, it dealt with Obamacare and the culture war. Opposition to the NSA’s domestic surveillance, however, is bipartisan and generational, which makes the issue more unique.
— Uber, Lyft present Republicans with a big opportunity in major cities: The innovative ride-sharing services improve quality of life in major cities, but Democrats are are trying to run them out of town. “This puts Democratic politicians in an awkward position because influential stakeholders like taxi commissions and their unions worry about competition from these innovators,” Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and Patrick Gleason write at Reuters. ”Taxi unions, for example, are often the biggest champions of the legislative and regulatory attacks against the smartphone app-based companies. And when it comes to the coalitions that make up the Democratic Party, labor unions dwarf most other competing factions in terms of political and financial strength.” They go on at length about labor union opposition to tech companies and the ideological friction to innovation that doesn’t jive with central planning. But explain how the issue is good for Republicans. “As of last year, for the first time since the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project began keeping track, the majority of American adults now have a smartphone that is the basis for so many of these new peer-to-peer businesses and startups. The share economy is not going anywhere. So Democrats, given the makeup of their coalition, face some serious issues,” Norquist and Gleason explain. “Politically, this presents an opportunity for Republicans to make a comeback in cities. By championing the often disruptive share-economy businesses, defending them against the status quo and focusing their political campaigns on these issues, the GOP can show it is the party that embraces companies that improve the quality of life in cities.”
— Trickle up economics: The purported benefits of corporate welfare never really seem to happen. In fact, as Matthew Mitchell of the Mercatus Center explains, cronyism is counterproductive. “Advocates of corporate welfare often claim that when governments privilege a handful of firms, the rest of the economy somehow benefits. This is how the Bush Administration sold the bank bailouts. It’s how the current Administration sold the auto bailouts. And it’s how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is trying to sell the Export-Import Bank,” Mitchell writes. “Mounting evidence, however, suggests the opposite is true: economies whose firms sink or swim based on political patronage grow slower and are less stable than those in which firm success depends on an ability to meet the market test.” He notes that beneficiaries of corporate welfare lobby for more and donate to politicians willing to give them handouts, but points out that “[c]orporate welfare doesn’t just undermine growth and depress profits. It also fosters instability.” The instability comes from firms willingness to take bigger risks, knowing that the government will be there to bail them out should they fail. Mitchell also explains that investors have recently reacted to favorable policies. “Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu and his colleagues found that when Timothy Geithner was nominated to be Treasury Secretary in 2008, Geithner-connected financial firms got an unusual boost in stock value,” Mitchell notes. “And just this month, when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary election, Boeing’s stock tumbled. The good news? Investors think Boeing may lose its Ex-Im Bank privileges. The bad news? American companies now seem to rise and fall based on their political connections.”
— Waiting to find out how broke Social Security is: The Obama administration is more than three months behind the legal deadline for publication of the Annual Report of the Social Security Trustees. “[T]he President and his leadership have repeatedly failed to publish on time the Annual Report of the Social Security Trustees, the yearly description of the program’s finances and future outlook. The legal deadline for its publication is April 1. We’re now more than three months past that deadline and there’s no indication that it will appear soon,” Jagadeesh Gokhale writes at Cato at Liberty. “Policymakers need to know this information so they can make timely decisions intended to ensure that the program remains on a sound financial footing. For example, the 2013 Report (which didn’t appear until the end of May) estimated that the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund will be exhausted and the program will be unable to pay full benefits at some point in 2016. Not much time remains for lawmakers to consider and enact sensible reforms to DI—and the clock is ticking.” Gokhale notes that both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were late with the report, but President Obama has failed meet the legal deadline every single year he’s been in office. The 2013 report found that the Social Security Trust Fund faces $12.3 trillion in unfunded, long-term liabilities.
— Beer is on the decline: Spirits and wine are on the rise, according to data from Euromonitor International. “The trend, according to the research firm’s senior alcoholic drinks analyst Spiros Malandrakis, has to do with story as much as substance. Big beer companies have remained pretty complacent in flavor and instead have focused on predictable advertising and discounts to boost sales, he said,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “The same old thing isn’t doing it for millennials, who are looking for innovation in taste as well as a compelling backstory, Mr. Malandrakis says.” The Journal adds that Malandrakis ”sees innovation in flavored vodkas, but even more successfully in the marketing of Irish Whiskey and American Bourbon.” Craft beer consumption has been on the rise, but it amounts to just 8 percent of the total market.
— Check out MxPx’s new record: MxPx, one of our favorite punk rock bands, is out with a new acoustic collection of some of their classics. You can check it out on Spotify and buy it here. MxPx frontman Mike Herrera chimed in at United Liberty last year on the NSA domestic surveillance controversy.
Other items we’re reading this morning:
Openly gay GOP candidates stand up (The Hill)
Democrats are Worried About Health Insurance Premium Hikes Under Obamacare (Reason)
Students Sue Ohio State University Over Crazy Illegal Campus Gun Ban (Reason)
Eric Cantor seeks financial help (Politico)
Left frets on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s next steps (The Hill)
Was Elizabeth Warren Responsible for the CFPB’s Over-Budget HQ — and Its Missing Records? (National Review)
Tea Party should reform the GOP, not splinter it (Washington Examiner)
Export-Import Bank Didn’t Make 2012 Reforms Ordered by Congress (The Daily Signal)
When Senate Polls Start to Matter (The Upshot)
Libertarian Voters: Still Invisible in New Pew Study (Cato at Liberty)
Poll: Who are political ‘bystanders’? (Politico)
Reality TV star to run for SC Senate (The Hill)
Economic Fallacies on the Left and Right (Reason)
Who Really Gets the Minimum Wage (Wall Street Journal)
China thinks it can defeat America in battle (The Week)
If you work for a liberty-minded organization, think tank, or candidate, please send tips, news, or event information to info-at-unitedliberty(dot)org.